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Showing posts from October, 2016

Mensåhi Ginen i Gehilo' #18: The Case for Independence

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Per United Nations Resolution 1541 (1960), the colonized people of non-self-governing territories such as Guam have three options to choose from when deciding a path for their decolonized future. The first is integration with their colonizer, which is commonly known in Guam as statehood. The second, free association is to form a foundational agreement and share parts of your sovereignty with another power, which is usually your former colonizer. Finally, there is independence, which contrary to common misconceptions does not mean isolation from the world, but rather joining it as a sovereign and equal entity. As I have experienced over the past decade, discussing decolonization in Guam can move from inspiring to frustrating quite quickly. People seem to resist decolonization in general and independence in particular as being impossible or dangerous. Although I have met few people on Guam who have read the work of Francis Fukuyama, most notably his book “The End of His

Fino' Chamoru na Inadaggao

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Trump and the NAACP

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I am truly terrified about Donald Trump being elected President of the United States. As they say in English, all bets are off, if he wins, because he is so thin-skinned and ideologically inconsistent, anything could happen, and the worst probably will.  One thing that I can definitely give Trump credit for, is that he has created, on a regular basis, the most random stories about a presidential candidate I've ever seen. Most often, these stories are horrifying to varying degrees, they deal with him ripping people off, stoking racial hatred or just being stubborn in the face of clear facts. Alot of them have to do with the gap between who Trump presents himself to be, a super rich, generous, intelligent and good tempered person, and who he actually is on a daily basis. Here's one such article that caught my eye. *************************** No, Donald Trump Did Not Win a Medal from the NAACP Christine Wilkie Huffington Post 10/23/16 WASHINGTON — A photograph of

Daily Dose of the Post

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-->   My addiction to news about the 2016 election for President in the United States reached previously inexperienced levels for me, when a few months ago I did the unthinkable, I signed up for a paid subscription for the digital version of a newspaper. I've had magazine subscriptions before, The Nation, The Smithsonian, Mother Jones, Z Mag, even Guahan back in the day. But newspapers were always something that I either purchased regular physical copies of, or I simply read articles online if they had been reposted into paywall-free forms. This election was different in so many ways for me, primarily because of the type of candidate that Donald Trump represented, whereby he followed very few established conventions for candidates and seemed to relish in energizing some of the grossest aspects of the American present and past. One thing that struck me early on was not his willingness to attack the media, as every candidate claims that they are not being treated fairly

Daily Dose of the Post

My addiction to news about the 2016 election for President in the United States reached previously inexperienced levels for me, when a few months ago I did the unthinkable, I signed up for a paid subscription for the digital version of a newspaper. I've had magazine subscriptions before, The Nation, The Smithsonian, Mother Jones, Z Mag, even Guahan back in the day. But newspapers were always something that I either purchased regular physical copies of, or I simply read articles online if they had been reposted into paywall-free forms. This election was different in so many ways for me, primarily because of the type of candidate that Donald Trump represented, whereby he followed very few established conventions for candidates and seemed to relish in energizing some of the grossest aspects of the American present and past. One thing that struck me early on was not his willingness to attack the media, as every candidate claims that they are not being treated fai